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TCHC is still needlessly evicting seniors: ombudsman

Toronto’s social housing agency needlessly evicts vulnerable seniors despite promises it made after Al Gosling’s shocking death in 2009, Toronto’s ombudsman says in a bombshell report to be made public Thursday.

Fiona Crean’s investigation found Toronto Community Housing Corporation staff failed to counsel some elderly tenants face-to-face before kicking them out of their homes in 2011 and 2012, according to a source briefed on the findings.

Al Gosling, pictured in September 2009, died from an infection he picked up in a shelter after being evicted over missing paperwork from his apartment in a Toronto Community Housing building. The subsequent inquiry led to promises of major changes in the way TCHC relates to its tenants who appear to be in arrears. (ANDREW WALLACE / TORONTO STAR)

“There are cases in which TCHC has kept sending people letters with no personal contact,” the source said. “The arrears kept mounting up to the point there was no way the seniors could pay them off. They were evicted.

“There is one case where the eviction is linked to their death,” the source alleged. “We have a senior who died three weeks after the senior was evicted.”

In the report, which was provided to TCHC last week, the ombudsman “suggests the eviction was one factor that contributed to the senior’s death,” the source said.

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The case appears to echo that of Gosling, the 82-year-old man evicted from his subsidized bachelor apartment in June 2009 after failing to keep up with paperwork verifying his low-income status.

Locked out, the frail senior lived in the stairwell of his old building until he was taken to a shelter, where he picked up an infection that killed him.

Justice Patrick LeSage, who presided over the resulting judicial inquiry, in 2010 criticized TCHC for its “heavy-handed” approach to arrears collection. His 80-plus recommendations included an “Eviction Prevention Policy.”

“The current strategy of sending tenants a constant stream of letters, some of which use threatening language, needs to change,” LeSage wrote. “Every possible effort must be made to achieve personal contact with tenants.”

Yet, Crean found “TCHC has not lived up to its promises,” the source said. “Seniors were evicted unnecessarily. There were supposed to be policies implemented, and that promise has not been fulfilled.”

For example, TCHC was supposed to put in place a standardized repayment policy so that all tenants are treated equally.

“There’s no set policy about how long tenants have to repay when they are in arrears,” the source said. “That means some seniors are treated differently than others, which is not fair.”

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Mayor Rob Ford recruited Gene Jones of Detroit in May 2012 to take over the troubled agency from interim CEO Len Koroneos, who took the reins in March 2011 when Keiko Nakamura was fired.

Jones said in an interview Wednesday that TCHC has agreed to implement all of Crean’s recommendations.

“We take all findings seriously and we have already implemented some of the recommendations and we are going to implement others in the next 30 days,” Jones said.

When pressed for details in the report and his response to them, Jones told the Star to read TCHC’s response letter to Crean, which will be released with her report.

Last Friday, Mayor Ford summoned reporters to his office and, flanked by Jones and city auditor general Jeffrey Griffiths, highlighted financial reforms at TCHC. Ford declared: “We can now say with pride that our house is back in order and we’re taking care of the most vulnerable people in the city.”

Ford, fighting for his mayoralty amid questions over a video that appears to show him smoking crack cocaine, also took a Toronto Sun reporter on a tour of TCHC housing Tuesday and personally ordered repairs to some units.

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